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What would you do if you started to Google your name and Google was to suggest you complete the query with the word scammer, fraud or crook?

While Google contends with lawsuits around the globe relating to autocomplete suggestions which are deemed libelous, one has to wonder if it isn’t possible to easily set up a campaign to smear anyone or any company. Google argues that features like autocomplete can’t be libelous because they utilize an algorithm which uses information from Google+ and user searches.

The obvious question which hasn’t been addressed however is if one can get away with fraud in the advertising business, why not in the autocomplete business?

Apple is in an outright war with Google and lawsuit wins against Samsung while helpful to the tune of a few hundred million dollars are great, to compete with Android the company must attack the very core of Google which is search. DuckDuckGo is the more secure alternative to Google Search. It isn’t as robust or as useful but at least the chairman of the company didn’t say that if you don’t want people to know what you are doing online, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.

While Google spreads itself thinner and thinner, the opportunity may exist to take on their core competency.

I'm sitting here at a restaurant called Tengda in Darien, CT a stone's throw from my office just thinking about how I came to know about this restaurant. You see I've eaten at Tengda before - but I didn't know they had a location right by my office. In fact when the weather is warmer I often walk here - its probably just over a mile away from TMC's River Park headquarters.

The point is I found out about this location through one of the daily deal sites - it was likely LivingSocial but perhaps Groupon.

It really is shocking that Apple has pulled so far ahead of every other device maker with designs that are more art than technology focused. For those of you familiar with Bang & Olufsen products (BeoSound 8 pictured above) you know in some ways Apple’s designs are a copy of this iconic audio manufacturer meaning Apple didn’t entirely invent cool looking consumer electronics devices and others should be able to compete effectively in the space.

I am sure Microsoft agrees but as they’ve watched Apple become the cool and fast growing computer company they used to be, they determined they need to be more like Cupertino. This of course is the reason the company decided it was more important to design new hardware than keep their partners churning out directly competitive products happy.

Google has been "different" for over a decade because the company always resisted overt advertising seen throughout the web. Through the entire pop-up era where so many websites capitulated and ran ads for security cameras and other items, Google stood almost alone.

But as you can see from the page above - click to enlarge, Google has now decided to use its premium real estate - the home page to run ads. The first ad is for the company's Nexus tablet.

Sure, the company has been making sponsored links look more and more like regular ads over the past few months and years - this trend isn't new for the company. Moreover, we have seen the company promote Chrome and other software products in the past - most of these however have been free products.

For those people who said the company would become "evil" shortly after becoming a public company - you may be right (assuming you consider this sort of behavior to be bad." For those of you who said the Motorola Mobility acquisition was "stupid" well perhaps you are wrong if the company rings up massive sales as a result of perhaps the best marketing strategy on the internet.

Will public backlash be so great that the search leader is forced to change course?

Google co-founder Sergey Brin recently explained that if the web was dominated by Apple and Facebook, his company wouldn’t have access to enough information to start its search engine. The idea is that the restrictive policies of Facebook make crawling its pages challenging if not impossible while Apple’s iPod, iPhone and iPad apps are generally not searchable.

He further explained the challenge to the internet from governments like Saudi Arabia, China, Iran and even the US where internet access is either limited or threatened to be limited very soon via regulation which is the case with proposed legislation like Sopa and Pipa.

In January of 2008 I discussed the rise of the splinternet – or a splintering of the homogenous internet we once were accustomed to using.

New research is showing that Android has some real problems. Obviously Google knows this and it’s part of the reason they purchased Motorola and as Henry Blodget points out are opening an online tablet store. David Beckemeyer too weighs in with a chart showing just how dominant Apple is becoming.

But before we get into that I was at my accountant last week and while he was crunching numbers I decided to tell my wife it was time to get my oldest daughter a refurbished laptop because her netbook takes longer to boot than the time it takes for us to assemble all the documents for the IRS.

Google has entrenched itself is so many areas of tech they have become the technology news of the day. First off, Google+ growth has been nothing short of fantastic, in part because the company has altered search results to put more emphasis on this social network. Every SEO/SEM professional has had no choice in the past few months to get up to speed on the latest social network from the search giant. And this in part is the reason why it has half the unique visitors of Twitter according to web traffic tracking site Compete.

Google’s 2011 revenues were $37.9 billion last year and 96% of that money came from ads. Now I know what you are thinking. Where is all that money coming from? Well thankfully, the people at Wired put together an infographic that explains it all.

Google is holding back nothing in its desire to promote all its top products and services this holiday season. Sure they have massive amount of advertising space they can utilize on their search and AdSense ad network but they also own the real estate on he Google home page. And although they like to keep things simple, this holiday season there is a new marketing message which graces the search page.